The village of South Milford, east of Leeds, makes an exceptionally wet debut on the blog, and thus a rather grim one, despite being a pleasant place that hosted me entertainingly enough this afternoon. But it was damp, oh yes indeed.
A glorious Sunday in the Lake District. The title of the post has layers of meaning. My walk today (see my Wainwrights blog for the details) involved a circuit of the placid and remote tarn of Devoke Water. It was a feature in multiple photos taken along the way, of which this was the last of the day.
But as I walked back to the car, I mused — is this perhaps the last ever? I have visited some of these marvellous places multiple times as I have gone round and round Cumbria over the last 12 years, but the project will end at some point (next year probably), and after that — will I find an excuse to return?
Some might say, that is in the hands of God/Inshallah/fate/whatever you believe. But in the end, I believe it is up to me. If this blog does make it to, say, day 8,000 — perhaps we will see this place again. I certainly hope so.
A pleasant, sunny, but surprisingly cold Easter Monday, Hebden Bridge and all points around being swished by a breeze straight off the North Pole. Did anything biblically happen on Easter Monday? Or is it just a modern excuse to give the plebs another day off in lieu? Either way — Heptonstall was looking good, as it always does. It’s been there for a few hundred years, it’s had time to bed in.
Those nice people in Authority have promised not to threaten arrest for doing something as subversive as going on a walk, on one’s own, in countryside that doesn’t happen to reside within spitting distance of home. So Joe and I went out on a walk. I bagged my 600th Wainwright and Joe, his 50th. (Full details soon to be posted on my other blog.) Both those milestones came on Wether Hill, but that is a rather unphotogenic lump — Steel Knotts, its predecessor in each sequence, was rather better. It’s appeared before on the blog, too: pictured from a distance on 6/2/17.
From no direction do these rocks look particularly like a cow and its offspring, but that’s what they’re called. It doesn’t matter; it’s a dramatic spot, with the creatures grazing on the heather above the town of Ilkley, which can become the 339th different identifiable place to feature on here. No, I wasn’t at home.
A walk around the Todmorden area today gave me the chance to see from above the railway line on which I travel frequently to Manchester. The settlement is certainly packed into this narrow valley at this point, isn’t it. But the railway somehow dominates, like it’s the thing that really controls the transport here.
This is the fourth shot in a row taken outside of Hebden Bridge. The last time that happened was over Christmas, in Norfolk — and the time before that, early October. This says a lot about the last few months.
Hollingworth Lake is a reservoir, and for 200 years has also been a sort of strange, inland beach resort, where thousands of people once flocked on weekends — something that can still seem as if it’s the case. Even at 9.35 on a Sunday, early morning sunshine had brought lots of people out today, including me (because it’s healthy). The birdlife didn’t really care however. They watch us, just as we watch them, I am sure.
This walker knew just what she was doing when she saw me pull out my camera. She called over afterwards, saying ‘don’t mind me…’ — but I assured her that I had got the shot.
For more pictures of today, being my latest attempt to stay sane and healthy, see the page on my County Tups blog. Also, as this technically counts as being in Bolton, I now have to award that place the title of ‘location to have the longest gap between appearances on the blog’. It’s 2,539 days since its first, and only other, appearance on the blog thanks to Bolton Wanderers’ stadium featuring on day 933 (15/3/2014). At over 1,000 feet in height — not to mention that its base is itself 1,440 feet above sea level — the TV mast seen here is one of the tallest structures in the UK.
This one was a matter of looking out of the window at just the right time, and having clouds at just the right layers of opacity. It’s not often we get a visual sense of the sun as being spherical, but this gets close, I think.
Beyond a darkened bedroom, this was the first view seen on opening the curtains to greet February 2021, the waning moon on its way down above the hillside, tinged red by the rising sun. It’d be nice if the rest of February were as pleasant as this morning was, although I already know that won’t be the case.
Being 42 